In Sickness and Health

I and my oldest daughter ventured to the beach today, not to get out in the sun and lay on the beach but to see a movie. Crazy as it might seem we took time to go see "Sicko," by Michael Moore.

On the surface it's about our appalling health care system, there is a sub-story that is perhaps even more compelling, that I will discuss a little later. The movie starts with people it not really seeking to discuss. People without health care insurance. We see instances of people who have to figure out, "can I spend $60,000 to keep this finger or should I just spend $12,000 to keep the other one." In another brief instance we see examples of patients dumped out on the street; sick, disoriented and unable to pay. That inhumane behavior is almost too obvious and pathetic.

The heart of Sicko features people who like most of us who live under the illusion that we have access to the best health care system in the world, simply because we have "insurance." As it turns out that is not the case at all. As a matter of fact, we see innumerable instances where people have coverage but in not so dramatic fashion are denied services for any number of reasons and excuses. I won't deny that some of this is not justified, but strikingly clear examples where that person deserved the treatment but was refused for the sake of corporate gain and profits.

As Moore travels around the globe to countries similar to ourselves (e.g. Canada, Britain and France) we see universal health care systems that appear to work for their populations and far different than they are usually portrayed in our corporately controlled media environment. In one instance we see simple inhalers which cost $110.00 here in the USA and in Cuba (manufactured by the same company) they cost literally 5 cents. Yikes.

By the way, this is a good time to bring up that argument where politicians and people form the health care industry are always saying about universal health care. "You don't want the government telling you which doctor that you can see or which hospital that you can go to." Stop the tape right there. Your insurance company already does that. Ever heard of the term "out-of-network." I have Carefirst BC/BS. Though the doctor that I like very much is here close to my house in Delaware, I cannot use him, since he's not a Maryland doctor who is also a part of their network. I have to travel 30 minutes to see my Primary Care Physican (PCP), if something is wrong with me. My choice of doctor is absolutely controlled by a private company, not the government, so I wish that people would stop repeating that tired nonsense and wake up to the existing reality that we live under.

Whether it's in the streets of America or moving around the globe, each story is compelling. Some left me shaken, because I realized some of the issues presented could apply to my wife or children. This is especially true of the "preexisting condition" clause. Why? Because you can have a preexisting condition without actually being aware of it. Think about that for a second and what that implies. Staggering that you could be denied benefits for such a thing.

An despite the above, our friends in the UK, Canada and France never give such things a second thought. Shocking.

An this leads us to a larger and deeper message woven into Moore's storyline. It has to do with the question of "what do we serve?" There are moments that this film questions if we are actually "free." How's that? There's an interesting moment in the film, that honestly blew by me when it happened in real-time. (President) Bush was on stage with a woman, talking about working two jobs and getting ready to get a third one. Bush praises her saying, "isn't that great," implying that this was a good hard working American woman. In reality working three jobs leaves little time to feel human. It leaves little time to spend "quality time" with family, friends or the things which we care about. It's more important to feed the machine and become more distant and distracted from our true self. People are more than just widgets. When we live like widgets, we are not willing to "step-out-of-line," because doing so might jeopardizes what little that we do (think that we) have. And because of this fear we are actually "oppressed" without clearly recognizing that we are in a kind of trap or prison and actually involved in its maintenance. This became painfully clear when Moore was in The UK and France. I realized they enjoy greater levels of freedom than we enjoy here. And that I was not prepared for when I and my daughter where on our way to see Sicko.

I encourage you to go see Sicko. I'd be interested to know if you saw the same things. For myself, it has provided me a certain motivation to change some things in my life. But in order to make our lives better in the first place, we have to understand that we are genuinely sick, so that we can step out of our foggy delusion.

May You Live Well,

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO.com